One Does Not Simply Walk Into Marriage
by Artemis Rampant
Summary: Planning a wedding is hard.  Pippin can't sit still for five minutes, much less the hours and hours it takes to prepare a proper ceremony.  Still, there are some things that are more fun to arrange than others.  Merry/Pippin, slightly cracky. Oneshot.


Guess who wrote her first Lord of the Rings fic? I did! Aren't you proud of me? I KNEW YOU WOULD BE.

A warning: since I have not read very much of the books at all yet (I'm working on it!), this probably steps on the toes of everything that is canon. Also, it takes place in the alternate universe where at the end Frodo never leaves Middle Earth, and Sam doesn't marry his beard, but I suppose you could probably pretend it doesn't because it's mostly Merry/Pippin-centric. DON'T KNOW WHY YOU'D DO THAT THOUGH. Oh, and it avoids the question of homosexuality and the acceptance thereof in hobbit society, instead opting for the SURE WHY NOT approach. It's mostly meant to be a crack fic anyways. Just a bit of fluff to make the world a better place.

**Title**: One Does Not Simply Walk Into Marriage  
><strong>Pairing<strong>: Merry/Pippin, Sam/Frodo if you stand on your head and squint  
><strong>Rating<strong>: T for implied sexytimes, I suppose  
><strong>Summary<strong>: Planning a wedding is _hard_. Pippin can't sit still for five minutes, much less the hours and hours it takes to prepare a proper ceremony. Still, there are some things that are more fun to arrange than others.  
><strong>Dedication<strong>: To the breathtakingly gorgeous and disarmingly witty lyricalecho, who watched Two Towers with me at eight o'clock in the morning and held my hand and gave me glorious ideas even sillier than this one. Darling, I am thrilled to have you at my side for all this LOTR fangirling. You make my life an adventure. 3

All of Hobbiton buzzed with the news not one hour after it was decided. Not that the two of them were subtle about it (not that the two of them are subtle about anything). What started as a raucous but altogether ordinary evening at the tavern turned into a celebration when Merry called the entire room to attention, pulled Pippin up onto a table with him, and got down on one knee. He didn't say much, didn't wax poetic; he just looked up with his dark eyes and said "Marry me, Pip?"

And that was that.

News travels fast in a small town, especially when it concerns the Shire's small circle of heroes. Merry and Pippin were just leaving the tavern for the night, stumbling along behind Sam and Frodo, and already they were being congratulated by everyone they passed. Pippin's smile was so large it looked as if it would split his face in two, and Merry kept him pulled tight to his side, occasionally laughing and pressing a kiss to his cheek as they walked. For that night, everything was perfect.

...

Everything was still perfect the next morning, when Pippin awoke earlier than he expected to a warm arm around his waist and a warm bed imploring him to stay. So he did, content to laze away his hangover for a few hours with Merry.

This peace lasted for roughly five minutes, when an insistent knock on the door (which Pippin was steadfastly ignoring) exploded into blatant intrusion, as what seemed like every female relative he'd ever met poured into his room.

"Oy! What's all this?" Pippin yelled, sitting up and exposing the fact that he wasn't wearing a nightshirt. The younger girls exploded into giggles and whispers. Merry snorted unattractively in his sleep and rolled over, pulling at the sheets and nearly revealing Pippin's lower half to the room.

An older woman at the head of the pack, some sort of distant aunt who he'd seen scowling around the place but had never spoken with, rolled her eyes and tossed him a long tunic from the floor. (It happened to be Merry's, actually, discarded from the night before, but Pippin didn't say anything.) "Get dressed, boy. We've got work to do."

It was his own mother who hauled him gently out of bed as soon as he'd worked the shirt over his head. He glanced down at Merry, as if he'd give him the answers in his sleep - only to discover that he wasn't sleeping anymore, only doing a very poor job of feigning sleep through one cracked eye. Unsupportive bastard.

"Work! What work?" Pippin refused to put pants on until he knew what was going on.

"The wedding, silly!" a cousin of his age sighed. "Oh, it's so romantic, isn't it?"

"They've already been bedding each other for ages," someone near the back muttered, and Merry turned a snort of laughter into an extremely false snore.

Pippin glared at his future husband. He could already feel the pulse of too much ale somewhere between his eyes, intensified by the audience he'd somehow gathered. "Look, can't this wait until second breakfast?" Or tea time? Or never?

"Nope!" one of his sisters crowed. "Come on, Pip, I've got some ideas I wanted to show you."

Reluctantly, he picked up a pair of trousers (also Merry's) and pulled them on. "But…"

"Come on!" Two different people grabbed his hands and pulled him out of the room.

"Merry!" he called, panicked. "Help!"

"Yes, come rescue your betrothed!" someone yelled through her giggles. Merry was now sitting up, laughing hysterically as Pippin was dragged down the corridor.

It wasn't until an aunt yelled "Meriadoc, if we don't see you down here with us in five minutes I'm telling your mother!" that his laughter cut off.

Pippin looked back to see Merry scrambling out of bed, groping at Pippin's clothes, and the look of terror on his face cracked into a small smile.

...

It was a week - a _week_ - of constant planning and flower options and suit fittings and guest lists before Pippin and Merry found a chance to sneak off alone without being accosted by someone trying to "help." They took a barrel of pipe-weed out to the apple orchard where they used to play and sat smoking under a tree at the far end.

Pippin felt lazy and happy for the first time since the proposal itself, and sunk bonelessly with each puff until his head rested on Merry's shoulder. "Mmm, missed this." Missed you.

"Yeah," Merry said with a small laugh. "Hey, I had an idea for the wedding."

"Urgh, no, no wedding talk," Pippin said, attempting to kick him without upsetting his slumped position. "You _promised_."

"No, hear me out, you'll like this one." He leaned down and murmured his idea in Pippin's ear.

With each word, Pippin's grin grew larger and larger. "That is _perfect_. Yes, yes, we are doing that. I don't care about anything else in this wedding, as long as that happens."

Merry grinned back and dropped a kiss in Pippin's messy hair. "Told you you'd like it."

...

Frodo knew it was only a matter of time before one of them asked him to be their best man. Truth be told he almost expected it to be Merry, but when Pippin bounded up to him one afternoon, he figured he knew what was coming regardless. "Frodo, Frodo! I have something important to ask you!"

With a small and hopefully not too smug smile, Frodo folded his arms. "What is it, Pip?"

Pippin's eyes grew wide and excited. "Well, I was thinking…"

...

"Please? _Please_?"

"No, no, _no_," Frodo said, walking away from him as quickly as possible. Pippin trailed after him, looking a bit like a large, very excited dog. "Pippin, how could you ask that?"

"Oh come on, it's just a bit of fun!" He spotted Sam walking towards them down the road. "Sam. Sam! Tell Frodo he has to do it. Tell him the fate of the Shire depends on it."

"Well, depends," he said, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "What is 'it'?"

Frodo sighed. "Pippin and Merry want me to be their ring bearer. In the wedding. I think they think they're clever."

Pippin could just tell that Sam was trying not to laugh. "I'm not sure the fate of the Shire depends on that, so much. I hear wedding rings have very different properties. Generally don't cause too much trouble."

In desperation, Pippin fell onto his knees and tugged and Frodo's hand. "Please. You're the only one qualified for the job. I wouldn't trust anybody else with something this important."

"Bit of an over-qualification, if you ask me," Frodo said.

"Please?"

Frodo looked to Sam. Sam just smiled and shook his head. Frodo looked back down at Pippin, who was trying to make his eyes as wide and convincing as possible. "…Fine."

"Oh, thank you!" He sprang up and kissed Frodo on the cheek in his excitement, which made Sam bark out a laugh. "You won't regret this!" He bounced off down the road. "Merry! Merry, he said yes!"

With an eye roll, Frodo put an arm around Sam. "Why are we friends with them, again?"

"They do make things a bit more fun, Mister Frodo, you have to admit."

"Yes." He shook his head and ran a hand through his curls. "Yes, I suppose they do."


End file.
